Google’s Success (NGC4LIB)

On Fri, 8 May 2009 11:48:01 -0400, Tim Spalding wrote:

>Every time libraries talk about the “powers that be” they should>remember *they* are the powers that be. Their combined financial and>mindshare power is enormous. They don’t need to make money, but only>provide a service people want. Something else is to blame for Google’s>success than bad branding.

I think one of the main reasons for Google’s success vis-a-vis libraries isthat libraries have always operated on “geologic time.” By nature they arehighly cautious. (I still refer to the internet as something new!) Librarieshave been burned with new technologies in lots of ways, so they want to makevery sure before actually taking the leap. There is also the idea thatlibraries should not act independently, rather it is through the “communityof libraries” where they need to respond to any new issues, and this slowsthings down even more, especially when you throw in proprietary computersystems. Libraries seem to have an idea that their patrons want the “triedand the true,” that people will get completely confused and frustrated byproblems that have only a slight chance of popping up, and so on. Add allthis up, and you have a field that is highly cautious.

Google has a completely different ethos: they can experiment, throw out thebad, change in a moment, update and so on. It turns out that people don’treally care that much whether or not something is the same as it wasyesterday. In fact, for many, if a site doesn’t change regularly, they mayassume that they know it all already and there is no need to look at itagain. So, Google changes the logo regularly; the search results can bequite different almost every day; they allow their staff to experimentliberally and to put their experiments out to the general public, where theycan easily fail. And it’s OK if they fail. Compare this to the library typeof development, which is slow moving, includes the “community of libraries”and so on, and it becomes much more difficult to admit that some new projectis a failure.

Only now is there a push from libraries to replicate in some way thecorporate ethos that brought Google success. With open-source software, realdevelopment is possible for even the smallest institutions. But I think itmay take a different generation of librarians to get away from thestereotypical cautious-library approach. I hope not, though.